James Constable has joined Blue Square Premier side Oxford United on a season long loan.

Constable has fallen down the Town pecking order following the signing of Grant Holt and Richard Walker to bolster Town's forward line.

Town manager Paul Simpson revealed the news to ShrewsWeb this morning when he confirmed Constable was going out on loan: "With the strikers we've brought in over the last few weeks I felt there was an opportunity for some of the lads to go out.

"I got an enquiry from Oxford United for them to take James Constable out on loan and I think it will benefit him and benefit us in the long term.

"He's still a young player in terms of the amount of games he's played at this level and I felt he would be a fair way down the pecking order and the opportunity to go to Oxford and hopefully play a season of first team football will do him the power of good and hopefully next season we can benefit from that."

The news will come as bit of shock to some Town fans who were impressed with Constable's performances last season. He joined from Kidderminster Harriers on transfer deadline day and finished the season with 4 goals, 2 of those in the 3-3 draw at home to MK Dons. Simmo thinks the move will benefit James and the Town manager will be keeping a close eye on how things go: "There's no doubt that James has shown last season that he has the heart and potential to be a success.

"There was an enquiry to take him permanently but I didn't feel that was the right thing to do.

"I do think he has something but I do think he's still very raw in experience and I think there are other players who are ahead of him this season.

"Oxford are having a big push at it this season and I know about the people there and they are good people who will look after him and do things properly.

"For me it's just part of the development of James Constable and we can monitor him over the season and he will benefit from getting the games there.

"Oxford isn't a million miles away and we can take the opportunity to go and watch whenever we can.

Guy Madjo was out on trial Holland last week with Go Ahead Eagles where he scored 3 goals in a practice game. Guy was back in training with Town on Monday so we asked Simmo for an update on the situation: "Guy is back training with us after going to Holland to play in a game for Go Ahead Eagles.

"It was a fairly straight forward game that they won 12-0 but I only found out afterwards that they were looking at Guy just in case a deal for another striker fell through. If I'd known that I wouldn't have let him go out there because I was under the impression that they wanted to look at him because they wanted to take him on loan.

"He played in the game and scored a few goals; another team saw him in that game and asked him to go there. They wanted to keep him for another week and train but I wasn't prepared to do that.

"He's our player and I needed to know what was going on so he's now back in training with us and we will see if anything else develops."

Pre-season training saw the return of Michael Symes and Neil Ashton to the Town squad. Simmo hadn't seen much of the pair last season as they were out on loan at Macclesfield Town. He's been impressed with what he's seen so far from both Symes and Ashton in the training sessions: "I hadn't seen anything of Michael Symes or Neil Ashton because Macclesfield's games coincided with our games at the end of last season.

"They've both come in and both have worked very very hard in pre-season training and they both will continue to work with us.

"They'll take part in the games over pre-season and if they show enough to make me feel they deserve to play then they will come into the reckoning."

The lads have been back in pre-season training since last Thursday and have been hard at work at the Sundorne Castle training ground. There are more sessions this week but on Wednesday they will get their first taste of competitive action with a practice game:"I've been delighted with the levels that the lads have come back in they've all shown a real good attitude. It's been quite physical at times but there has been a lot of ball work involved as well and they all seem to be enjoying it.

"We've got a behind closed doors training game against Wrexham tomorrow where it will be a case of three 30-minute sessions. That will allow us to keep changing the sides around and we will be able to stop it and use it as training game.

"When you come up against another club and the players actually put their shin pads on and do it all properly then it comes a little bit more intense.

"We've got this game and then a couple more training followed by the week out in Spain where that will be very physical on the lads.

"The trip to Spain will be a big benefit as we will be able to get all the lads together and there will be meetings going on and discussions about what we want to do over the season.

"When we come back we are into the thick of it with the first pre-season game against Stafford."